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In 1879 French surgeon Paul Segond believed there was an extra ligament in the human knee and now, according to The Huffington Post, his proposal has finally been proven. Knee specialists in Belgium recently published their discovery of the additional ligament in Journal of Anatomy. The new part is called the anterolateral ligament or ALL, as a shortened version. Guided by Segond’s belief the surgeons used the dissection of cadaver knees to make their new and exciting discovery. It can be described as a “pearly, fibrous band” and it is a “well-defined ligamentous structure.” The ALL connects the thigh bone to the shin bone. They found this to be true in forty of forty-one of their dissected knee cadavers.
Their discovery only gets better. The team has discovered that the ALL is linked to anterior cruciate ligament tears which affect many athletes in skiing, basketball, and other sports that involve a significant amount of leg movement. If the ALL is damaged it causes the knee to give out even after proper surgery is given to an afflicted athlete. Their claim has yet to be proven, but if it is the new information will greatly help in ACL treatment. It’s all about the anterolateral ligament and the pivot shift.
Image Credit: University of Leuven
